


A Bittersweet Birthday

by BronzeCanary



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28356129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BronzeCanary/pseuds/BronzeCanary
Summary: Sara's first birthday without her father. Leonard knows that it'll never be okay, but it'll be not-okay with them together.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: CaptainCanary2020SecretSanta





	A Bittersweet Birthday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleMissAnon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissAnon/gifts).



> Set during season 4. Leonard never died and they got together right after Destiny. I'm bitter that Sara never really got to grieve her father so here we are.

It started last night at dinner. The Legends celebrated Christmas a day early to allow their captain a birthday of her own, something she didn’t get growing up. She wasn’t totally withdrawn, still laughing and making jokes with the crew, but she was…off. Not the rowdy, unapologetic Sara that he knew and loved. That night while Leonard made the bed, a ritual he learned in prison and Sara found pointless, he tried to coax what was wrong from her. Maybe it was the passive-aggressive message left by the Time Bureau director earlier that day, wishing her “one Beebo Day where the group didn’t fuck up”? Sara insisted she was fine and even with his incompetence with emotions, Leonard knew this wasn’t true. However, he respected that she didn’t want to talk about it and dropped it for the night.

At around 3 in the morning, Leonard woke up without the warm body he usually sweats from holding. Groggily rubbing his eyes, he saw his girlfriend perched at the end of the bed, holoprojector in hand. Slipping his glasses on, he approached her but oddly, she didn’t seem to notice. Leonard wrapped his arms around Sara’s waist and rested his head against her shoulder. He finally saw what she was looking at and it clicked. So, that’s it. This was the first birthday she’d experienced without her father. Laurel had passed years ago, and Sara had lost contact with Dinah soon after. Tears rolled down her face as the projector lifted images of her father, almost looking so real that he was there with her. Leonard placed a gentle kiss against her temple, and she continued scrolling through the photo gallery she’d saved. 

The next picture pixelated into the hologram and suddenly, a little blonde girl holding a canary was manifested before them. There was a slight waver in Sara’s usually smooth voice.  
“That was my eighth birthday. The thing chirped all night, every night for months. Drove dad nuts. I’d forgotten about it until the Gambit. While I was out there, waiting to die, a canary showed up just as the Amazo pulled me out of the water. It felt like he was there with me, saving me.” She waved her hand, and the next picture came.

“He didn’t want me to go at all. I begged for weeks. His compromise was I could go, but he would too.” The same little blonde girl from the previous picture had aged three or four years. Pale hair pulled into perfectly patterned braids. She had a blue and pink woven bracelet around her small wrist. A friendship bracelet. In the background there was a proud Quentin, donned in a blue “camp counselor” shirt.

The next one, Leonard had seen. After the funeral, Sara and Leonard cleaned out Quentin’s home. She took a few trinkets as reminders, this was one. A picture that had previously been surrounded in a warm, wooden frame. The Sara he knew, just with terrible hair, and a brunette Laurel, who he’d only seen in pictures, next to each other with big smiles on their faces. The last time Sara had smiled without there being a glimmer of sadness behind her eyes.  
“I’m glad you have these,” Leonard muttered. A small part of him jealous that she had reminders of her childhood that were happy, while his were jagged cuts into his skin and trauma behind his eyes.

Another crack in her voice, “Am I a bad person?” Sara whispered. Leonard made a confused noise, and she continued.  
“Am I a bad person because I wish Earth 2 Laurel never came here? He might still be alive.” Leonard had nothing to say to that. He sighed and kissed her face gently again. She didn’t hate the other Laurel, and he understood that she was speaking from a place of pain, but he knew nothing he could say right now would make it better. 

He pulled her from around the waist back to the top of their bed.  
“We might not be able to take the Waverider, but we can still go back in time to see him anytime.” He held the projector out in front of them and clicked on the home videos they’d copied over from the tapes found in Quentin’s house. Sara nuzzled into Leonard’s chest and both cried and smiled while watching home videos for the next hour until she fell back asleep. 

Well into the late morning, or whatever the timeship version of that would be, the couple awoke in each other’s arms.  
“We don’t have to come out of here if you don’t want, but I think there’s a chaotic crew who’d like to wish their captain a happy birthday,” Leonard whispered into her ear. Sara groaned and begrudgingly got dressed.  


“Happy Beebo Birthday!” announced Ray, oddly close to the captain’s quarters. Close enough that Leonard suspected he’d been pacing outside of. Hugs and “happy birthdays” were given freely and while there was still a sad air around her, Sara seemed a bit more herself.  
Ray dragged Sara by the arm into the galley. “Ta-da!” A layered cake covered in a near-radioactive yellow frosting sat on the countertop. Chocolate canaries in dark and white sat on the top tier. 

A groggy and seemingly hungover Constantine reached into his pocket and threw salt at Sara while mumbling “you’re welcome’ along with what sounded Latin to Leonard, before putting tea on. 

With coffee and cake consumed, Sara walked to the bridge, Leonard trailing behind. She approached the hologram phone and entered in a number she knew by heart. There were few of them and guessing who she was calling, Leonard lounged against the wall just out of frame. He was right. An attractive blonde man with the same sadness in his eyes as Sara had in hers answered. They exchanged pleasantries and inside jokes. The man promised that there was a gift waiting for her when she next lands. 

“Ollie,” Sara started and took a deep breath, “can you put Laurel on?” He looked surprised for a minute and called over a blonde woman that seemed so much like her sister, and yet so different.  
“Happy birthday,” said the woman in a tone fair more delicate than anything Leonard had heard from her.  
“Merry Christmas,” Sara answered.


End file.
